Today is Sunday,  October  9 and there are only 33 days until my birthday (which means only 77 until Christmas) so there is still time to shop for both days.  Today we remember the birthdays of Miguel de Cervantes, Bruce Catton and John Lennon.  On this day in 1635 religious dissident Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1888 the public was admitted to the Washington Monument for the first time and in 1980 we saw the first consumer use of home banking by computer.  In Ecuador, Tanganyika and Uganda today is Independence Day, in Peru it is the Day of National Dignity and in the US it is National Leif Erikson Day and National Moldy Cheese Day.

Tomorrow is Columbus Day and normally I would discuss the man and his dream to travel to the Indies, but I have decided to go in a different direction (no offense Chris) and discuss National Leif Erikson Day.  This day honors Leif Erikson, the Norse explorer who brought the first Europeans known to have set foot in North America.  He left the European continent in 999 and set foot in America in 1000, some 492 years before Columbus.  I have not been able to find an explanation for his trip, but assume he was headed in this direction intentionally.  Based on the timing, one has to wonder why we give so much credit to Wrong-Way Columbus and so little to Erikson … but I digress.

In the year 1925, President Calvin Coolidge gave recognition to Erikson as the discoverer of America.  United States Representative John Blatnik from Duluth introduced a bill in 1963 to observe Leif Erikson Day nationwide.  On September 2, 1964 the United States Congress passed Joint Resolution 88-566 authorizing the President to proclaim the day as Leif Erikson Day and this has been done by presidents since Lyndon Johnson.

The day was chosen because it is the anniversary of the day that the ship Restauration arrived from Norway in 1825, starting organized immigration from Scandinavia to the US.  Now let us slam shut the drawer on useless holiday information once again.  It is amazing how often that drawer pops open, isn’t it?

One quick comment on the rushing of the seasons that I brought up last week.  There is a commercial out that actually plays Christmas music.  Come on!  We are just getting to Leif Erikson Day and we already have commercials with Christmas music.  The only thing that makes it tolerable is it is a song I like.

Moving on, I find myself drawn back to another topic that I seem to go on about – commercials.  Specifically the ones for medications.   By the way I may have lost track, but I think another medication has come out for psoriasis.  Are things that bad?  Should we be creating a ribbon for it?  Sorry digressing again.  I have written in the past about animated body parts in commercials.  The one that has gotten me recently is the one where a person has assumed the persona of the body part.  She wears a body suit, has an unattractive hairdo and talks to the woman who is suffering from the affliction.

Let me digress yet again and ask this question – are we to assume that since she is the only one with this annoying body part hanging around, that she is the only person in the area suffering from the affliction?  I think the whole thing would be more interesting if several other people in the office had their own body part following them around.  Anyway, here is what gets me.  Once the woman starts taking the medication, instead of the body part going away, the woman is now teaching it how to do clerical work.  Am I the only one who has a problem with this?  Is it really possible to teach my bowel how to file papers while I do something else?  There has got to be a better way to sell medication than by insulting our intelligence with the drivel they are coming up with.

Speaking of commercials, I was watching TV the other evening and one came on regarding hair loss.  I already had a beverage and I did not need to use the bathroom, so I spent the time analyzing the commercial.  I noticed some interesting differences between the before and after photos.  In the “before” pictures, the lighting is a bright, white light.  The person is shown with a dour expression and the women have no makeup.  The “after” picture shows them in a softer light, they are smiling, the women have makeup and, in one case, I would swear the woman had her nose done.  If your product is really good, show the people in the exact same settings and let us see what it can do.  If you have to make that many adjustments to make them look good, I have to wonder if your product really works.  Okay, I am finished with commercials for this week.

I think it is lucky for me that I am a senior citizen and that I wear either a cap, shirt or jacket that shows that I am a veteran.  If it were not for those two things, I would probably get punched often.  I was recently in a store and had one item to purchase.  As I was heading for the cashier, a young man came rushing up and pushed in line in front of me.  I, of course, felt I had to say something so I said, “O-o-oh.  Good job.  By pushing in front of me like that you saved yourself from having to stand in line an extra 30 seconds.”  He turned around and looked at me and my Vietnam Veteran shirt and decided not to react.  Unfortunately, I am not sure he got the sarcasm.

This week our fact tells us that 29% of us are virgins when we marry.  The rest of us were having a much better time and the women still wore white gowns on their wedding day.

Happy Leif Erickson Day!  And for the traditionalists, Happy Columbus Day (observed) tomorrow.